At press time, a spokesperson for the House Energy & Commerce Committee said there was no deal yet on the end-of-the-year legislative package that includes incentive spectrum auctions.
The House is still hoping to vote Friday on a package, which means there could be even more delays in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) markup hearing in the House Judiciary Committee that began contentiously Thursday and was expected to continue in a similar vein Friday.
There were reports of a two-month extension of the stopgap payroll tax holiday and other must-pass legislation that could be spun off from the other elements of the package and voted on if a deal could not be struck on the larger bundle of bills.
National Association of Broadcasters said Thursday he expected spectrum legislation would ultimately pass because of the money -- $15 billion or so -- it is expected to return to the Treasury for deficit reduction.
Also on the no news front, Sen. Charles Grassley's office told B&C/Multi Thursday that there had been no change in his planned hold on the FCC nominees. He is awaiting documents from the FCC on its LightSquared waiver that the commission has so far declined to provide, beyond publishing some documents online released pursuant to other's FOIA requests that Grassley's aide has said do not fill the bill and are not directly responsive to his request.
